Inspired by the Edmond-dantes discussion about a new tournament format (knock out) with fewer games, I'd propose a change to the next World Championship tournament:

Grand Masters who were in the Valhöll one of the latest two years, have Round 1 in a Valhöll Door group if they register.
Likewise International Masters and Quadrathlon Master if they were in the Valhöll final last year.

This goes for
Plantagenet (GM and Valhöll final 2017)
Herjan (GM and Valhöll final 2016)
Adam (GM and Valhöll final 2016)
Crust (GM and Valhöll final 2016)
OdinHimself (IM and Valhöll final 2017)
Casshern (QM and Valhöll final 2017)

If there are not registered 5 players for the Door group, it is supplemented with more players from the Valhöll final last year until 5 players is reached.
That is
edmond-dantes
animals
sqaree

After the Valhöll Door round, the top two group winners go to the Valhöll final. If there are only two players registered in the group, then there's no need for a Round 1 for them and they go straight to Valhöll.

All other participants have a Round 1 in groups as usual, and the group winner goes to Valhöll final. 27 players fx. in 3 groups of 9.

Last edited by Hagbard on Wed May 02, 2018 12:53 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Grand Masters who were in the Valhöll one of the latest two years, have Round 1 in a Valhöll Door group if they register.
Likewise International Masters and Quadrathlon Master if they were in the Valhöll final last year.
...
If there are not registered 5 players for the Door group, it is supplemented with more players from the Valhöll final last year until 5 players is reached.

Let's see how such a rule would have worked last year:

At the World Championship 2017 these players were qualified for the Dyrr Valhöls group (Old Norse for Valhal's Door):
Herjan
Crust
Adam
Altti
- and possibly
Sigurd
bigwurm91
Hagbard
xerxes
Tuireann

Only Altti, bigwurm91, Hagbard, xerxes and Tuireann registered and would all have been in the Door group.

29 more players registered. They would've been split in 5 round 1 groups of each 6 players, resulting in 5 or 6 round 1 group winners for Valhöll.
At last the Valhöll final with 6 or 7 players.

Last edited by Hagbard on Wed May 02, 2018 1:07 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Notice that a short route to the final is proposed for the masters.
It's proposed that only group winners proceed to the next round. But all of us who don't expect to make it all the way, should join anyway to give the stronger players a hard time, so that it will not come to them too easily!

Sign up: all July, August and half September. There will be a button for registering for the tournament.Start: September 15th.

Points are 1 for won, 0 for lost and 0.5 for a draw.
Umpire: xxx. For xxx's games, umpire is yyy.

Masters' qualification round.
Certain masters have only one qualification round before the final.
Their group is "Dyrr Valhöls" (Old Norse for door of Valhal).

Players starting in Dyrr Valhöls are (if they register to join):
Grand Masters who were in the Valhöll final one of the latest two years.
International Masters and Quadrathlon Master who were in the Valhöll final last year.
If this does not make 5 or more players, then the group is supplemented with more players, first from the final last year, and if necessary also from the final two years ago.
This year these players can start in Dyrr Valhöls:
Plantagenet
Herjan
crust
Adam
OdinHimself
casshern

and these players are in queue for supplementing up to 5 players:
edmond-dantes
animals
sqaree
Sigurd
bigwurm91
Hagbard
xerxes
Tuireann

The top two (!) winners proceed to the final.If from the whole list only one or two register, they go directly to the final without a preliminary round.

Normal qualification rounds.
All other players have a round 1 in groups of 3 or 4. As usual distributed through the Thue-Morse sequence based on ratings.
The groups have viking locality names like Fornebei, Vinland etc. (Midgård names).

The group winner from each group proceeds to round 2, again in groups of 3 or 4.
The groups have Asgård figure names like Othinn, Thorr and Loki.

The group winner from each group proceeds to the final (Valhöll).

In case of a tie, as usual for all games:
1. direct comparison of the games of the tied players (for this round).
2. Sonneborn-Berger score calculated for this round.
in case of still a tie:
3. preliminary rounds: both players proceed. Final: new rounds until one wins.

Timing is as for all other games.

If at any time you want to leave the tournament, just say so, or press the Deregister button.
If a player does not move at all in a round before he times out, he is removed from the tournament.
A player who causes more than half of his Round games to time out, is disqualified from the tournament.

Last edited by Hagbard on Sat May 12, 2018 4:32 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Right now an American Championship Tournament 2018 is running (North & South America).

What about a European Championship Tournament 2018 beginning Sep. 15th? For players not in North or South America and not already grandmasters. Winner is International Master.
If the World Championship is run as proposed above, then its Sep. 15th round 1 is not very hard, only a very mixed group of 3 or 4 players. So there could be surplus energy for this too.

The European tournament had 11 players last year, so it would better to take two rounds.
(In case of 11 players: first round 2 groups of 4 and 1 group of 3. Second round only the 3 group winners).

Example:
With the same no. of players as last year, 29 for the World Championship and 11 for the European Championship, then the no. of games for a player who attends both and goes all the way would be:
first month 4 + 4 games in round 1
second month 4 + 4 games in round 2
third month 8 games in round 3

I like the idea to have a Masters group. However, I would like to see at least 3 players come out of this group, not just 2. This group will be very difficult to advance from. I think it would be a shame to lose 3 or 4 top players before the actual final round.

Actually, I think it would be better to only lose 2, 1, or no players from the Masters group. Instead, maybe just redistribute these players to play against the winners from the other first round groups. The Masters group would function as a way to seed these players for the second round. This will hopefully lead to higher level of play throughout the tournament. Maybe even the discovery of new stronger strategies.

I am not a big fan of the smaller groups. I think that it mostly because I am used to playing a lot of games at once in large groups. But, I recognize how this can be difficult for some players. I just think that groups of 3 or 4 may lead to more ties between players. Possibly, leading to going to tiebreakers like quickest win or least pieces lost, which I do not like. However, I could be completely wrong about these smaller groups. Everything could fall in line perfectly. We could even have 2 Masters groups, if enough qualified players sign up. This would lead to even more games played at a higher level.

These changes, 3 rounds and smaller groups, really depend on how many players register. Ideally, the second round would be 4 groups of 4 players. Winners advance to Valhöll. Or 3 groups of 3 players maybe more realistic. I personally don’t like the idea of groups of 3. The numbers just aren’t adding up to me or I am over thinking things.

I like the idea to have a Masters group. However, I would like to see at least 3 players come out of this group, not just 2. This group will be very difficult to advance from. I think it would be a shame to lose 3 or 4 top players before the actual final round.
...
We could even have 2 Masters groups, if enough qualified players sign up. This would lead to even more games played at a higher level.

The Masters' league could be 2 groups of each 5 players, 2 winners from each group would contribute 4 masters to the Final.

We could go the full Monty and admit to the queue for these two groups all players who were ever in the final, limited to 2 x 5.

Actually, I think it would be better to only lose 2, 1, or no players from the Masters group. Instead, maybe just redistribute these players to play against the winners from the other first round groups. The Masters group would function as a way to seed these players for the second round. This will hopefully lead to higher level of play throughout the tournament. Maybe even the discovery of new stronger strategies.

Rest of the players, perhaps about 20 players, could be split in 5 groups of each 4.

One winner from each group plus the 6 non-winners from the Masters' league (in this ex. 11 in all) are redistributed in 3 groups for round 2. One winner from each goes to the final.

I am not a big fan of the smaller groups. I think that it mostly because I am used to playing a lot of games at once in large groups. But, I recognize how this can be difficult for some players. I just think that groups of 3 or 4 may lead to more ties between players. Possibly, leading to going to tiebreakers like quickest win or least pieces lost, which I do not like. However, I could be completely wrong about these smaller groups. Everything could fall in line perfectly.

These changes, 3 rounds and smaller groups, really depend on how many players register. Ideally, the second round would be 4 groups of 4 players. Winners advance to Valhöll. Or 3 groups of 3 players maybe more realistic. I personally don’t like the idea of groups of 3. The numbers just aren’t adding up to me or I am over thinking things.

Preferably 4 players in a group rather than 3.
Quickest win or least pieces lost, not to be used to determine who proceeds to the next round.

Masters' qualification round.
Certain masters have only one qualification round before the final.
Their group is "Dyrr Valhöls" (Old Norse for door of Valhal).

Players starting in Dyrr Valhöls are (if they register to join):
All players who were in the Valhöll final last year.
The group is supplemented up to 12 with players from the top of the rating list with at least 32 games.
The 12 master players are split in 3 groups of each 4, and the winner of each group goes to the Final. Rest of the players go to Round 2.

I offer that any grouping for tournament rounds be sorted so that players of similar rating face each other. Random grouping will lead to slaughters in the first round. Both grouping concepts are fair in their own way.